As I was thinking today about one of those layers a little voice inside my head said “you are a fighter,” and I thought, I am a fighter. And then that little voice inside my head said “you are a problem solver,” and I thought, I am a problem solver.

Just this last weekend I was laughing with my almost 16 year old son about a computer game we used to play together called Pajama Sam. Worst game ever, because even with a college degree, I could not solve the problem of finding the last vegetable person (what the heck was that game anyhow?) and we never beat the game. I can picture this game in my head with 100% accuracy as I write this, and there’s a part of me that may go look for the CD ROM and see if I can solve it today.

Worst game ever.

When that little voice inside my head decided to talk and say that I’m a fighter, and then, that I’m a problem solver, the lightbulb went on, the sky opened up a bit, and things made sense to me. I AM a problem solver. I can’t handle things just dangling, hanging unsolved. I’ve always been a ‘why’ person. Call it needing to know, or even suspicious until I know the reason behind some things. I’m a thinker. I can get lost in spinning on a thought or a problem. It’s not always a good thing. Over the years I have learned to not waste valuable brain space for things that aren’t important to solve or to get to the bottom of.

But, some things in life right now, they need a solution. And unlike Pajama Sam, I will stick with it until I come up with the right fit solution. That’s the fighter. When things matter, you don’t give up until they are right. I think that in order to be a good problem solver in life, you also have to be a fighter, so you never give up.

Oh, and sorry in advance if you aren’t able to get ahold of me for a while, look what I found…

Like this:

Went to Target this morning, and while checking out, started explaining my purchases to the cashier.

“I never would have thought I’d be buying Pop tarts for my kids’ before school breakfasts! But if it helps them to get up for these last three weeks of school, I’m in.”

The cashier went on to tell me she gets up early to make eggs and home made stuff for her kids each morning. That’s nice. It really is. Thankfully, she told me her kids are 5 and under. I made a mental note to check in with her in 10 years and see if the egg thing was still working out for her. If it is, I’ll allow myself to feel like a loser mom then, not now. I’m in survival mode.

No one wants to get up for school anymore. They’ve been doing it for just. too. long. I’ve heard so many arguments such as “They (teachers) want us to get our sleep, so why do we have to get up so early?” We even get to the point of “Why do we even need school,” as they walk past me in zombie like fashion.

So, in comes Pop tarts. If these morsels of sugar can assist in my lovely children getting out of bed without me putting on a one person circus, I’m in.

Deal is, out of bed by specified time, you get Pop tarts for breakfast before school.

I wrote about this epic parenting technique last year, you can find it here:

“Mom, I think I’m getting a migraine. I have spots all over my eyes, and I feel dizzy.” About 1/2 hour later, killer headache.

This sucks worse than when I get one.

It’s happened about twice over the last 8 years or so that one of my kids has gotten a migraine. Good odds actually. But really? Why is that something that I need to pass down? Hey, here ya go kid, a big batch of crap, with the name migraine, all for you!

Ironically, I’m happy that I do know what a migraine is and how disabling one can be sometimes. I’m happy that if tomorrow is a day that my kid tells me they need to stay home because their head is killing them, that I can totally understand and not second guess them.

I hope that migraines do not become a regular occurrence with my kids. I hope that if they do get one though, that their teachers and coaches can somehow understand that this is not a made up thing to get out of a responsibility, yet a temporary, painful pause button on life as you want it.

Middle school sucks. Not the school in particular, the years of middle school life. I know because I’ve been through middle school, watched one of my children go through it, and currently have one in middle school. Kids are trying to figure out who they are. Many start to make bad choices. Others struggle with trying to keep on the right path. Socially, emotionally, hormonally, things are on warp speed. We’ve had our share of incidents through these years. The incident I refer to below probably won’t be the last. All is fine now, and my daughter does not know I’m writing about this, so if you my family, please don’t mention it to her. Because of the stellar attention and actions from the administration at my child’s school, it was able to be determined that the student’s intention was not to threaten my child. This incident in fact, opened a door to the student that may have never been opened in order to get some attention and assistance that was needed.

If I were to talk in front of middle schoolers today, this is what I’d say:

My daughter was threatened by another middle school student last week. I’m not going to go into the details about it. The reason is because some of you may be scared hearing about what happened, and others of you may think ‘what’s the big deal about that?’ So, I’ll let you use your imagination. Unfortunately, some of you may have your own experience with being threatened that you can relate to.

I feel that negative experiences at times are perfect opportunities to realize some positives. So, I’m going to focus on some positives. Some of these are general, some are specific.

Thank you to the student, who each day, walks up to my child and tells her something nice to make her smile. Each and every day. We should all be so lucky to have someone think of us and want to make us smile everyday. You know who you are. Thank you for your attention, and for making her smile.

Thank you to my child’s friends. Both old and new. Thank you for the laughter, the good times shared, or just sitting next to each other at lunchtime, those moments are important. Friends are an extension of family, people my child can depend on. Thank you.

Thank you to my child’s teammates. No matter which sport, thank you for pushing my child, for picking them up, for constantly confirming what it means to be a team. Being part of a team allows for a sense of belonging. That is so important in life.

All of you here are a community. Your community became larger coming into middle school from elementary school. Being in a community brings a feeling of needing to protect it. When someone threatens a part of your community, you need to work together to make sure everyone is safe. When you hear students talking about other students, and hurting them, or hurting themselves, that’s a warning sign. Even if you are hoping they are joking, it’s not something to take lightly. It’s not your responsibility to decide whether something is or isn’t a ‘real’ threat to your community. Parents, teachers, principals, counselors, those are the people you go to when you feel that your community needs to be protected from something.

YOU MATTER. Everyone matters. The person who is making the threat, they matter too. Be proud of your community, and work to do your part to keep it safe. You don’t ever need to feel embarrassed about something that you feel scared or uncomfortable about. If you are not feeling safe, or feel someone else is not safe, those are real feelings, and always worthy of attention. Your feelings do not have to match others. If you are uncomfortable with something, tell someone. YOU MATTER.

*You Matter is one of three essential messages used in the aMasongrace project @ amasongraceproject.com.

Every single night, I pray that my kids, and all kids, and schools will be safe the following day. I will continue this. But I just don’t know what else to do.

I get so mad, and I question so much when these school shootings happen.

Do I homeschool? That keeps them safe from school shootings, but not movie theaters…

I told my husband this morning that I am starting to wonder what my little piece of political power, my one vote, holds. That is something that I need to keep looking into, and in the end it may change how I’ve voted in the past, it may not.

This post is Part 4, because I’ve written about my children’s school drills three previous times.

Part 3: Our children’s reality, uncomfortably numb. My children’s conversations in the car about the recent changes in an active shooter drill, and their nonchalant comments about the probability of being shot. All while I am about to pass out at the wheel while listening to them!

Again, as I have said often, I fully support my children’s school and they are doing their very best to keep my kids safe.

But I wonder, big picture wonder, what the hell is enough to keep them safe anymore?

Like this:

While shopping at Target for the second time in 3 days one recent morning, after getting all 3 of my kids off to their 3 separate schools, I saw a sign that read:

I wanted to tell it to shut up, and then maybe give it a little shove to knock it over.

This particular recent morning, prior to my Target outing, had been a rough one in our household. Therefore, a more appropriate and accurate sign to be hung in my house would have read something like this:

And while thankfully the majority of the time I could accurately display the love and laughter sign from Target, my own sign of attitudes, fits, temper tantrums and yelling is definitely an accurate portrayal of my home during certain moments.

(Disclaimer: moments where my ATTITUDE sign can be displayed may be getting more and more frequent as the number of teenagers in my house increases.)

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This is my 87th blog post, and today is my blog’s birthday. I’m considering this to be my ‘Greatest Hits So Far’ post.

One year ago, I started my blog. Thanks to my sister in law, upon her suggestion, I began sharing my migraine experiences, along with lots of other tidbits from my life, and as a result, have had 4,150 views of my posts. Crazy.

It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m so thankful, and still a bit overwhelmed by the great feedback I have gotten.

So, to celebrate, here are the TOP 10VIEWED POSTS from this past year:

I was planning on publishing this in a couple of days, a recap of a conversation with my kids from last week. But today, I subbed at my youngest’s elementary school, and participated in an ‘Active Shooter Drill’. Laying flat, listening to the alarm, having administration bang on the doors to check that they are locked, all while meeting the eyes of little ones who some are nervous, some are still chatty, it’s hard to not get a little emotional that this is our reality. I likened it to military, where God forbid anything like this ever happens for real, kids and staff would go on auto pilot and do what they have practiced, and practiced well. So, I thought today was appropriate for the following post.

The actual conversation in the car after I picked up my children from school:

My 4th grade daughter: We have a new way to act if we are on the playground for the stranger drill.

Me: Oh?

4th grader: Ya, you don’t lay on the ground anymore, you run zig zag around the playground, or to the school to see if a class is open. It makes it harder for someone to shoot you.

Me: Um, ok.

4th grader: And someone asked a silly question, they asked what if the bad guy broke the window in the door and then just reached in and opened the door?

Me: Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about..

10th grader son interrupts: Oh, that can totally happen, he could break the window with his gun and then just come in and start shooting then.

Me (in cold sweats, and clearly the only one in the car uncomfortable with the conversation): Stop this conversation now please!

4th grader (totally nonchalant, with absolutely no emotion): I totally think the old way was better. You just lay down.

Me (calming down a bit thinking that I liked the old way too)

4th grader: Because then you’re laying down and they just shoot you and it’s over.

Me: Ok, that is it, no more of this talk, I can’t do it.

10th grade son and 7th grade daughter: Snickering.

Me to my 10th grader: Do you have drills?

10th grader: Um, no. Maybe we had a fire one last year?

What is going on?!!!

All 3 of my kids are in the car, chatting away like we’re talking about a recent movie seen, or what type of toppings they would order on frozen yogurt, and with each sentence stated by one of my kids in their calm, matter of fact voice, this is me:

And I could not make up this next part if I tried… Playing outside later that night, my 9 year old says ‘hey mom, this is how we are supposed to run if there is a stranger on campus drill at school.’ And she proceeded to run across the grass, pretty much having fun, in a zig zag pattern. She then wanted me to try. As I had to almost laugh that I was going to run the ‘stranger zig zag pattern’, I rationalized that I was playing with my kid, so that’s good right? After my zig zag debut, my 9 year old gave me a look like ‘ya, you’re a goner if it ever happens.’ So, I lost in the game of zig zag pattern stranger running? I have no words…

Maybe it’s good that they are so matter of fact with all of this. But it blows my mind still. Again, glad that there are procedures in place to make our kids safe, and so thankful for my kids schools and their teachers. But I have to almost laugh at the panic it creates in me, while my 3 kids are in an almost zen place when discussing this topic.

Amazingly, of these three questions, number 1 was the easiest and most direct to answer.

She had asked me the ‘Is Santa real?’ question earlier in the week when everything was crazy busy and I was able to Jedi mind trick her with ‘let’s talk about that when we have time to really have a good talk.’ Then, a few days later, she cornered me in the backyard as I was watering the plants. She just needed to know. No emotion, just needed affirmation. We talked, she was cool, and on she went to ride her Ripstick in the front yard. Three kids, three different reactions to that question. My 15 year old still has never asked me that question. My 12 year old was extremely emotional during our conversation. And I think I need to investigate why my husband has been away for a night when this question has been asked….

Question number 2 happened in the car while driving with all three of my kids. This question I did not answer as directly as question number 1. The movie ‘RV’ is our family go to movie. All five of us love it, and consistently laugh each time we watch it (which is usually at least twice a year).

We, as many did, felt that we almost knew Robin Williams personally, so our family was very sad when he died. Why my youngest wondered how he died while driving in the car yesterday, I do not know. I wasn’t sure how honest I needed to be about his death, which isn’t really something I know too much about anyways. We instead talked about that he had been married, and had adult children. They were amazed when I told them I thought he was about 60 when he died (turns out he was 63). My son said ‘but how did he look about 40 then?’ One thing I did say was that I had read that he had been sad at times during his life and making people laugh probably made him feel good. I have talked to my kids about suicide, and learned to use language such as ‘you matter’, and ‘moments pass’ due to a mother’s extremely heartbreaking true story which has allowed me to learn how to help educate my kids http://amasongraceproject.com/about-the-project/. And although suicide is something I have talked about with my kids, I wasn’t confident in going there and using that term yesterday with the Robin Williams talk. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s something I will revisit.

Question 3 happened out of the blue in the kitchen. I tried to explain cancer as it happens in a persons body the best I could. I tried to ‘answer only what is asked’ as I have in the past. The follow up questions were ‘does it hurt?’ Then specifically about breast cancer and how ‘sometimes women just get them cut off?’

It’s these types of conversations that make me feel like such an amateur in this parenting thing. But, I just keep doing my best at being honest while trying to keep in mind the maturity level of my kids. Having Google implanted in my brain so I can reference it in the middle of these talks seems like a good idea to me.